Stephen Goldstein: If only James Bond ruled the world

September 15, 2013|Stephen Goldstein, Columnist

I love all James Bond movies for one compelling reason. I've seen most of them countless times because of it and will no doubt continue to do so.

It doesn't matter who's playing Bond. When one of the cable channels airs them non-stop, as sometimes happens during a weekend, I keep the TV on most of the time, mute the sound, read or otherwise go about my business, tune in and out. As formulaic and predictable as the plots are, I never tire of watching them unfold.

I don't love Bond movies because they're action-packed or peopled with characters bordering on the criminally insane. I don't envy Bond his Aston Martin or the high-tech toys "Q" makes for him, though I'd love to be in a high-speed car chase driving a car that can fly. I don't prefer my martinis "shaken, not stirred"; I don't drink them.

The onlyreason I love James Bond movies is because in them the bad guys always lose — big time.

Bond's world is an unambiguous moral universe: Good always triumphs over evil — and there's suspense but never any doubt that it will. Bond saves the world from a string of megalomaniacs, but not before he's been tied up and left for dead, thrown into a tank filled with man-eating sea creatures, nearly sawn in half or otherwise tortured.

But at the 11th hour, 007 extricates himself, saves the ever-present damsel in distress, and goes on the offensive. The world comes crashing down on the bad guys — literally in all-consuming, fiery explosions — and they wind up victims of their own schemes and devices, which Bond turns against them, with the help of the damsel now out of distress. No matter how many times I see them, the plots are all clear and simple and right and decent — and just.

Alas, in the real world, the plots are forbidding and uncertain, and our leaders are 00's, moral Lilliputians. If 007 had a "license to kill," our policy-makers and pundits believe they have a mandate to be shrill, generating sounds and fury signifying nothing — or devastating positions.

The late Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev said that the United States would destroy itself from within. And he was right: We are now living the script of "From Russia with Shoves," courtesy of Vladimir Putin. He has watched the tea party/Republicans relentlessly say "No" to President Obama's agenda and he's adopted their strategy, obstructing any resolution to the crisis in Syria until now, with devastating consequences. What began as the crisis over Bashar al-Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons has become our self-inflicted Waterloo, exposing the raw nerves of our own civil war. Syria is no longer about Syria; it's about us — and it ain't a pretty picture.

We have aired our dirty laundry in public, and our prestige and ability to act as a world power have been forever compromised. Pathologically, the president says what he absolutely won't do — only to signal to those who know his MO precisely where he'll eventually cave. The I-hate-Obama-no-matter-what conspirators in Congress who have always fought him are chafing at the bit to deny him his right and power to use military force, even if it's justified, as long as it weakens him.

Don't expect much leadership from the Florida Congressional delegation. Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Gainesville, a birther, and others have been quoted saying, "If we do this, we are attacking a sovereign nation that has not attacked America." What they really mean is, "I'll never accept a black president." Sen. Marco Rubio, who voted against the Senate resolution authorizing force, only cares about whether he'll upset the tea party and spoil his presidential aspirations.

Public opinion is in a free fall. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, said it best, "I simply cannot conclude from talking heads and yapping television personalities what my position will be." No matter, a sizeable percentage of the general public, not privy to classified information but willing to believe anything, especially if it discredits the president, gobbles up the babble of cable pundits.

Between the neat morality of 007 and the harsh uncertainties of reality, there has to be a happy medium. But I haven't got a clue what or where it is.

In the meantime, I'm going to choose to watch "Dr. No" or "Goldfinger." And don't tell me you wouldn't rather do the same.